


Spiders in a Mirror (Are Made of Sterner Stuff Than They Appear)

by Jana



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: And It Would Shock Peter, Eldritch Abomination Venom, Even Aunt May Was Teenager Once, F/M, Gwen Stacy Lives, Lovecraftian, damn it marvel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 14:32:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11807901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jana/pseuds/Jana
Summary: This is not a story about crabs. Nor is it about cats. They just keep popping up.Peter rents an apartment with a dubious floor decoration left by the previous tenant and winds up a host to a lesser eldritch horror. Against all reason (but that breaks easily anyway) it goes better for him than in canon. Not that it means things are easy...





	Spiders in a Mirror (Are Made of Sterner Stuff Than They Appear)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Rise](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6138775) by [SleepsWithCoyotes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes). 



> While inspired by SleepsWithCoyote's story, Spiders in a Mirror is not affiliated with with it any more than Jana is with the writer. It makes no reference to their original plot, doesn' feature the original characters or same characters in general. The story is intended to do them honour and reading Rise is not required to understand what is going on.
> 
> Having said that, go read it anyway, it's great!

Perhaps one day there would be a child and a bedtime story. Future is forever in flux, shifting like a mirage, and only where it meets the now it becomes something resembling stable. Perhaps one day there would be a little girl named May Parker.

"Once upon a time there was a boy who fell in love with a beautiful blond girl," her father might say. "She wasn't the kind of blond who did flips with pompoms, but the kind of girl who really loved science. And the boy loved science too, but he was shy and she never noticed him."

"That's stupid," May might answer. "You can't have a fairy tale with science, you need magic!" And Peter Parker would smile.

"Trust me, there was plenty of magic."

***

There was always something about the kind of apartments Peter could afford. If nothing else the upstairs neighbour played tuba or listened heavy long into the night. In this case, though, the catch was more amusing than anything.

"That call makes a lot more sense now," he told his potential landlady, looking at the circle painted on the floor. It was a large circle surrounded by strange, angular glyphs, with a clunky octagram and more strange symbols inside it.

"Nothing from the supermarket helped and I wouldn't try anything industrial strength. The floors, you see," the landlady said, her voice all harsh edges. When Peter had first heard her on the phone, demanding to know whether or not he was a Satanist, he had imagined a thin, long-faced woman with angular glasses, tight, graying bun and the stern eyes of a librarian when your book was two weeks late. Mrs. Temple was all soft curves and a softer sweater, with round glasses and curly chestnut hair falling down to her shoulders.

"The noise complaints were endless, he always started in the middle of the night and did who knows what," she continued, clucking her tongue. "I decided to kick him out before the neighbourhood cats started disappearing."

"A good call," Peter said, eager to agree, though in his experience most Satanists were a completely harmless bunch. Most of them were rebellious teenagers who wore a lot of black, burned a lot of candles and seemed completely unaware that turning a cross upside down just made it a perfectly legitimate Petrine Cross. Then there were the few middle-aged types who chanted to Satan, worked in the office eight hours a day, paid their taxes and remained unaware Petrine Cross was a thing that existed. 

But of course there were a few nutcases in every religion. Not to mention, he didn't want to disagree with Mrs.Temple now.

Other than a harmless floor decoration, the studio apartment was great. It was affordable and the heating worked. It came pre-furnished and while the furniture was old, it was the kind of old that had been made to last. Perhaps the wooden table was a little scratched and the upholstering of the stuffed chairs faded from darker green to delicate mint - at least he assumed they hadn't been mint to begin with - but there would be no trips to Ikea. The windows opened to a narrow alley, facing a solid brick wall, and while normally this would have been a minus, for someone who needed to sneak in and out in costume it was perfect.

"I'm taking this," he said, barely believing his luck. Even That One Guy had been kicked out. Every apartment building had That One Guy and if someone claimed theirs didn't, they probably _were_ That One Guy. Here and now it would be Peter, but at least he was self-aware enough to admit it.

And he wouldn't ululate in the middle of the night. Should go a long way towards not getting kicked out.

Gwen took a picture of the circle during the housewarming party and posted it in her blog, along with the story. The very next day she showed Peter a comment she had gotten from an offended Satanist.

 _that is not a Satanist circle stpd idk wha it is but the symbols r rong,_ it read. The profile picture of the commenter was a goat's head inside a pentagram.

"I almost answered I'd be more likely to accept corrections from someone capable of writing complete sentences," Gwen confessed, embarrassed. They were sitting in the campus cafe, sipping blessed, blessed caffeine. She had a moustache from her cappuccino and Peter reached out to wipe it away.

"To being the better person!" he said, saluting with his double espresso; after taking up the mask it had become his second great love. "Not that you aren't sexy when you get catty..." And Gwen threw him with her giveaway chocolate.

He remembered for a fleeting moment that Aunt May had looked at the circle and frowned, saying it looked very different. But then Gwen kissed him and he forgot about the odd phrasing all over again.

It was exactly two weeks later that he stumbled back home at ten, after a charity gala where he had been sent to get pictures of the rich making a show of doing the right thing. It wasn't that he thought charity galas were a bad thing, but after risking his life time after time doing the right thing and only getting headlines like Spider-Man a Menace to Society, the whole thing left a bad taste to his mouth. Before the gala there had been the microbiology exam and now he turned his TV on expecting the Real Housewives; a dose of sense of superiority that didn't require two neurons to fire in his brain.

"...the rainbow crab is approaching the Central Park!" is what he got instead, delivered by a red-haired woman holding a microphone. Peter's first reaction was a flat what, but the reporter's eyes were wild and her nostril's flared like a horse's that was a second away from bolting.

"Just my luck," he groaned and picked his bones off the couch and to the closet. He reached for his usual suit, hesitated a moment and picked the insulated one he had made after fighting Electro instead. He had a feeling there might be hallucinogenics involved and some gases penetrated through skin as well. It wouldn't offer perfect protection even with a breathing mask, but hopefully help a little.

The travel from Lower East Side to the Upper West took time, even when you could swing across the streets, and Peter half-expected to find out either the Avengers or the Fantastic Four had already taken care of the problem by the time he arrived. Instead there were police in black riot gear, screaming people being evacuated and a trail of destruction leading through the park. At least it was night, no families enjoying a picnic, but damn, was he the only superhero in town right now?

New Your was never really dark, but the park was darker than most places and he more sensed than saw the few brave police that had followed the thing into the bushes, now hiding under them. The crab couldn't not be seen and the thing actually made a little bit sense after he saw it - the key word being little. It wasn't a real crab, but a robot of some sort, perhaps the size of a pick-up, only flat and on six long legs, with pincers waving threateningly. It wasn't quite rainbow-coloured either, with legs of blue steel and main body of smooth white and something that shone like brass, but probably wasn't.

"This episode isn't about spiders. Nor owls. It's about assuming the best of what you see only to find out the stupidest villain plot you ever saw was a crab," he informed the thing and leaped atop of it.

"Did you just mangle Welcome to the Night Vale," a muffled voice asked under the bush. Peter's head whipped around.

"You follow Night Vale?" he asked the bush and the pincer swiveled and swung in a way no real crab's pincer ever evolved to do, blue blur barely visible to the eye. He let out a totally dignified yelp as he leaped before watching, hit a tree and bounced back, white web hitting the wide open pincer. He had absolutely meant to do that. Yep.

He couldn't dodge the electric arc, he knew it was coming before it did and it hit him mid-air, harmlessly fizzing around him white and the palest of blue before dying. In that brief, bright moment he could see the plaque on the thing's carapace, an almost modest thing that read A.I.M.

"Well, that would have hurt if I wasn't such a boy scout. Always prepared!" Peter shouted and jumped back on top of it, hitting with everything he'd got. 

He expected the harsh impact of flesh and bone against metal to shoot up his arm, only for something to crunch, for the bright not-brass bend under his hand the tiniest bit. He hit again and his time it crunched louder, something wet _squelching_ up. Holy shit, he had the time to think, the thing wasn't a robot, it was a _giant rainbow cyborg crab!_ His body already uncoiled like a spring, jumped over the pincer he'd webbed shut only for the other hit him to the chest, slamming him through foliage and into a pond, the breath leaving his body in bubbles. Somewhere up he could hear the cracks of a gun going off, one, two, three. Okay, now he was angry.

He burst to the surface and drew a sweet breath, then another and ran towards the gunshots.The police were backing away; even those bullets that did pierce the carapace didn't seem to do much damage at all. Peter leaped under the crab and hit it to the stomach, or whatever he actually managed to hit. This time his blow went deeper and the carapace broke sharper. A sharp silvery flash of pain and blood was running down his forearm, but all Peter could think how the crab was so silent. Shouldn't anything living screech when in so much pain?

Then it chirped in a clicking kind of way that reminded him of a canary and tried to skewer him with one of it's steel legs. Okay, so maybe it just wasn't in that much pain.

The fight took longer than he'd expected, but it was more annoying than dangerous in the end. The crabtasers would have been a real problem if he hadn't grabbed the insulating suit, uncomfortable and hot as it was, but now the biggest danger had been dodging the bullets of the helpful police. But he couldn't find it in him to be cross, not when the young, black man grinned at him.

"You know, I bet whoever they are came up with the acronym first and the had a meeting to decide what it means," he said and Peter laughed, enjoying the camaraderie of fellow fans.

"Seems like the kind of thing people who came up with that would do," he agreed. The thing hadn't seemed to be aiming, heh, for anything and Peter had a feeling someone had let it escape by accident. Three other men were milling in a flower bed awkwardly, glancing over their shoulders and back again.

"You should leave now, I'll take over from here," the policeman said and Very Meaningfully turned his back. Peter grinned as he jumped into a nearby tree, a strand of web and he grabbed a piece of crab attached to one of the tasers. He had never seen something grafted onto a living being like that and it was fascinating.

His mood was considerably darker by the time he had finally swung his way home. The adrenaline of the battle had faded and now he felt every bruise it had left on his body, the bone-deep exhaustion of the past day and night. The crabtaser was unceremoniously dropped to the floor as Peter pulled his hood off. He had cut his left arm with a jagged piece of metal and the long line of it was throbbing with every heartbeat. It had ceased to bleed, but when he peeled his suit off it tore open again. Drip, drip, drip.

Why couldn't he be part of a superhero group too? Or have a partner, even a sidekick would do as long as they weren't too kidnapping-prone, someone so he wouldn't need to bind his own wounds anymore.

"I need a partner," he groaned, looking at the floor; at least he couldn't ruin it any worse. "And a new suit."

Drip, drip, drip.

***

Elsespace, elsetime there was a ripple, a disturbance. The caller didn't have a prayer of pulling it by force, but the kind of the sacrifice drew its eye, made it wonder. Blood of a hero, shed for noble purpose, and the viscera of a living weapon; a _rare_ combination. Beings of limited dimensional awareness were rarely interesting.

One That Shares, the voice appealed, To Wear Upon Skin. And the request was as rare as the offering made for it. It made a choice and it reached outwards, towards the way opened by the ritual. To pass through was to be without defined shape, neither solid, liquid, gas or plasma, he was everywhere, not bound to any specific location. And then he was and time turned inflexible; he wasn't one of the Great Ones who could bend even these rigid worlds to their pleasure.

The summoner was a man, a human appearing to be in his prime, wounded though he was. It devoured the blood and the weapon, fulfilled the pact even as it flowed over and around the man and then deeper. It didn't understand the words, but One That Shares had been specified and so it shared, feeding upon nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain. From the origin, development and order when without became within.

"...get off me!" the summoner screamed with the raw terror of a man whose sacrifice has been answered beyond his wildest dreams. He clawed at it futilely and it realized anew that for humans fear tasted like iron, like the acid of their stomach. "What are you?" A whine, barely audible.

 _I am Mirror,_ it answered. Devouring Mirror it had been called in the past, but it wasn't at this point in time, not anymore and not yet Become.

"...but you d-don't reflect anything," the man complained, inexplicably. But there was something more to him now, potential. When standing before something so vast it defied understanding, mortals fled or fell to their knees. Usually it was one or the other.

 _I am The One Who Becomes by Becoming and the Becoming Becomes,_ it said, and a glimmer met it, the defiance of the first time a man held a torch to drive away the darkness.

"Your Babel Fish is on a fritz," the man spoke, which.

What?

The man continued to claw at himself, at it, seemingly oblivious they were now joined at a cellular lever. Humans were dreadfully unaware of their own bodies.

_When is a Babel Fish and what is a fritz?" it asked when no clarification was forthcoming - and now something changed, the reflection rippling, shifting restlessly._

__

"It's, it's from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Babel Fish is a-a yellow leech that, it translates things if you put it in your ear." Fear still, but also an undertone of amusement, a hint of anticipation. "It once caused an interstellar war when the G'Gugvuntt and the V-vl'hurgs were at the negotiation table. Light years away in the future there was Arthur Dent, a human speaking to himself and minding his own business, and his words were carried by, uh, a freak wormhole in space back in time. They just so happened to translate into a horrible insult." The human kept pulling at it, tried a joint after joint for a weakness.

 _Wormholes do not behave like that,_ it protested, bemused. Perhaps this Hitchhiker's Guide was the holy book of a great religion? Critical mass of faith could bend the laws of physics even among...

"But it said so wait what!? Do you know _how_ wormholes work? The Rainbow Bridge of Asgardians, it's supposed to go through a wormhole, but it should have negative energy density, that can't even, it just can't and it does!" And there it was, the Mirror thought with satisfaction, the potential realized.

The sacrifice freely made and freely accepted, it was now joined with it's summoner - Peter Parker, the Spider-Man - on a level deeper than mere verbal. It could feel the primal reaction, see the neurons firing, taste the adrenaline as he was fighting his fear. But he was fighting it, fighting the primal animal hind brain that screamed of unknown and danger, of sharp claws and teeth in the dark of the night, of strange tongues and customs and gods and how it was not safe, how it was wrong. This was the third reaction before the vast unknowable: _want._ Peter Parker wanted to know and learn and understand and it could work with this.

"The mechanics of wormholes are simple," it spoke with the mouth of its summoner for the first time. There was another burst of adrenaline, fear - itcantakemeoverwhatwillitdo - but that was pushed back again. Maybe it wouldn't do anything, maybe everything would be alright, he didn't know how to get it off, if it even could come off, there was so much he didn't know.

There was so much Peter Parker needed to know, he was courageous before fear, and what is a mirror, but that which reflects others? It Became.

***

Mortal terror was surprisingly tiring, as Peter found out. After the second huge adrenaline spike of the night crashed, he crashed with it and crawled to the bed, the black _thing_ still _on him_ and everything. He felt like an old dishtowel wrung dry one time too many, like his body had been turned into gelatin bones first, and what the hell ever this was could damn well wait until the morning.

His dreams were restless, full of darkness, the rocky ground of a cavern under him, or perhaps it was a maze. There wasn't anything, really, except the darkness and the horrible certainty that he was not alone there, the same shapeless fear that had made him fear to approach his bed with lights off, imagining many beasts with fantastical jaws under it. Even when he'd been old enough to know there was nothing there, it was different to know it when the lights went off.

Peter woke up still tired and the last night failed to be yet another bad dream. His head felt like someone had stuffed it full of cotton and his stomach grumbled like a sloth of starving bears, but that was normal. He gave a dull glance at the black something covering him arm and sighed; there went the normal. How the hell was he supposed to go anywhere like this?

And just like that the black something retracted, twisted into a new shape and Peter found himself wearing his red and blue suit with a black jacket thrown on top of it.

 _I can reflect normality,_ the voice spoke in his head, the not-sound of it making his mouth go dry in half a second flat.

"That's good to know," he managed to answer. He was going to skip the lectures of the day either way.

The Mirror, whatever that meant, looked a lot more intimidating than his old suit. Peter stood before a real, actual mirror for a quarter hour, just looking at the shineless mass that looked like it was made of black hole, with huge white eyes and a spider at his chest, all lean and mean predator. It didn't bend and fold the way fabric would, but almost like a second skin, if he had suddenly turned sexless. Yet with a mere thought the menace of it could melt into an innocuous jacket, a shirt, jeans and even as small as a pair of gloves.

"Well, at least Aunt May won't wonder if I'm cutting myself," he said with a voice that only shook a little. Or order him German heavy from Amazon; with her it was equal odds.

Where was the extra mass going, how did it decrease and increase? But first things first; he needed a name to call it.

"Is Mirror who you are or what you are? And, uh, what kind of pronoun I should use of you?" he added, realizing that an it was really, well, impolite. And fine, it was some kind of demon and that maybe-Satanist had a lot of explaining to do if Peter ever found him, but rude was rude.

 _It is both; I am not one of the Great Ones._ There was something really creepy to the voice and Peter didn't know if it was just that he was hearing a voice in his head or if the voice itself was somehow wrong. _I am sexless. You may call me a he if it makes you more comfortable._ And there was a transfer of emotion, a yawning lack of caring.

"Well, you need a name too and I'm calling you Cecil," Peter decided. Again he got the feeling that Cecil didn't really care either way, but he answered to the name so that was all right, he guessed. "Well. Let's talk more. Where does your mass even go?"

While Peter first made and then devoured baked beans on a toast, fried tomatoes and a plate of bacon, he learned that 1) Cecil was approximately the size of the Empire State Building and could put the parts he wasn't using away; 2) he put them away into the dimension (plane of existence) where he came from; 3) he had never even heard of Satan, Lucifer or Beelzebub; 4) Cecil could perceive seven dimensions (mathematical space) and 5) the Great Ones whose mass was roughly on par with small continent and who could perceive ten dimensions (mathematical space) sounded unnervingly Lovecraftian. He stuffed half a tomato into his mouth, the hot juices burning his tongue, and resolved to Not Think About It.

As it turned out, A.I.M. had historical connections to HYDRA, for all it was an independent organization nowadays. The Avengers returned the very next day from some European country approximately the size of the New York City Peter had never heard of before - had it only just become independent, how hadn't he noticed? - and held a press conference.

"The Avengers will investigate the matter," Captain America spoke in the television, standing golden under the sunlight. "I would also like to extend our thanks to Spider-Man who took care of the threat in or absence. It's good to know that the city will be in good hands when we are called away." He looked so painfully genuine and Peter's mouth dropped open.

His opinion of Captain America had been very divided since the man's return. One side of him, the one that had read all Uncle Ben's old comics as a child and who had read of the man from history books, had idolized Steven Rogers. The more cynical side that had gotten to peek behind one pretty facade too many during his employment in Daily Bugle couldn't believe the man was genuinely that pure and wholesome. There just had to be professional polishers behind something that shiny - yet no PR team would have advocated speaking highly of Spider-Man.

"Good old Jameson must be frothing at the mouth," he snickered and turned the telly off. There was a mathematics textbook calling his name and he needed to keep the scholarship.

 _You don't have to worry about the scholarship,_ Cecil's voice spoke in his mind, sending shivers up and down Peter's back. _I must learn of your enemy._

"What, Jameson? The man's really infuriating, but he isn't an enemy," Peter protested. Sandman was an enemy, Doctor Octopus was an enemy, the Lizard... the Lizard had been the first and he had been complicated. But Jameson was more infuriating and stubborn than anything else.

 _He would turn the world against you if he could,_ Cecil said like gravity weighed heavier upon his words than his body, and Peter couldn't really deny his words. He decided to go swinging instead, get a bit of patrolling done and hopefully find out how fighting with Cecil was going to work out without any supervillains involved. With a thought the black shirt became a suit, and that was another really great thing too: he could keeps actually warm clothes under it, him. However creepy Cecil was, at least he wouldn't have to freeze his ass off during the winter.

Swinging from one skyscraper to another was really freeing when he wasn't in a hurry, the thrill of going down and the weightlessness of flying up again like a bird. The sky wasn't blue so much as it was flat gray with a chance of rain, but to him sky was always beautiful so long as it wasn't raining alien invaders. This time, though, his shoulders stayed just a little bit tense because while things had been going great so far, there was no telling what would happen when he found some dastardly deed to foil.

And the it came, the ringing in his head like a siren, his body twisting mid-swing to change direction. And there it was below him, a gray van running the red lights, the crowd parting before it like a flock of birds changing course mid-air. There were no police, nothing more than a traffic light violation, but Peter just knew, knew it was, had been up to no good with breathless certainty.

 _Limited battlefield clairvoyance,_ Cecil said, his mental equivalent of tone surprised. Meanwhile one last webshot landed Peter on top of the car with a loud thud. The car swerved, but he clung to the roof tightly, making his way above the cab.

There were too many people around to risk bringing the car to a stop, he realized, the people on the sidewalk going past in a wild blur of colours. He had literally nothing to do but to stay on until the thing decided to come to a stop on its own.

 _Tether it on both sides,_ Cecil commanded and then Peter's body was already moving without his will. Without his will, but not _entirely_ against it, for all that a part of his was screaming to runfightdosomethinganything!

Then his hands shot web to the wall of two buildings, high near the roof, and he leaped up, up, up, his feet sticking to the roof of the van as his muscles flexed, bringing the arms that had been spread like a crucifix's together he he melded the two ropes into one, mended them into the car. It was all over before he could blink, the front of the car jumped up while the back obeyed the laws of nature and Newton: a moving object, it continued to move while the web made to force it stop. The car flipped upside-down and Peter crouched lightning-fast, or maybe it was Cecil, they ducked to avoid hitting their head against the pavement. Cecil was the one with enough processing power to strengthen the splicing of the rope and the van before he climbed to the top of it again. Well, the bottom, really.

The motor continued to roar in vain and the van bobbed up and down really unnervingly, the web stretching some. The weight of it was supported by the buildings and right now it was Peter who made a second set of ropes make sure the van stayed right where it was. Okay, situation, no. Situation not over, not the moment to panic.

In the future just, tell me if you are gonna, if you do something, he tried to think loudly, a surprisingly challenging thing to do. If no-one's life is endangered by the wait, he then continued, Ruthless to himself because he didn't want any more lives on his conscience. He kept shivering.

 _I am sorry,_ Cecil said and Peter got the feeling that he didn't really understand what Peter's issue was.

It's really disquieting, he thought, again in silence because there were people gathering around, many of them with their phone already in hand. He got enough bad publicity from the Daily Bugle without the internet deciding he was unhinged to boot. Because just crouching there was starting to look odd too he broke the window with a crash of glass; hitting it helped in some primitive kind of way. Crook number one, the small one, was quick to turn his pistol at Peter for all he was hanging on the safety belt upside-down, only to have it yanked from his hand. The sharp edges of the window should have cut at his hand, but Peter could barely feel the brush of them through Cecil. Cecil was useful, he really was. 

Crook number two had an honest-to-God AK-47 and if there had been any doubt of the men being guilty in something, that would have dispelled it. The man didn't even try to turn it at him, only staring with wide pupils and trembling lips, beads of sweat rolling down his forehead. Peter fought the urge to turn to look what was so scary behind him; Cecil looked intimidating, sure, but not _that_ intimidating.

Maybe it was just nausea. Better be quick before the man lost the control of his innards and spewed his lunch on Peter.

"Is there anyone in the back?" he asked as he wrapped the men up and opened the door to lift them to the roof of the car.

"No, no, just us!" the hulk of a man blubbered. He had a heavy-set face and moustache much too small to fit it. "Don't hurt us!" And of course he didn't, carefully lowering them to the sidewalk and then tying them to a lamppost just in time to hear the sirens approaching.

"Who are you?" one of the bystanders asked when he made to leave, an older woman dressed in tight leather pants and a jacket that read Fuck the Police. She was wearing a safety pin for an earring on the left side.

"Your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, now improved version 2.0!" he shouted and made a little bow. A girl with golden curls like coin stacks let out a little, enthusiastic scream, blushing fiercely. She looked like she might be sixteen years old and Peter wondered a little distractedly if he had looked so young in high school.

"Tell the boys in blue that the web will begin to fray in half an hour, don't go crawling under it," he shouted and jumped up, climbing the wall just as the police car turned around the corner.

"Fuck the police!" the Punk Granny screamed and pumped her fist into the air. Peter paused for a moment on the rooftop, only to see Mr. Sheriff's Secret Police stepping out of it; for all it could span a person's entire life sometimes Manhattan felt like the size of a handkerchief. 

Mopping up this had to mean paperwork from hell. Peter waved jauntily at the man to cheer him up. There was the gleam of light reflecting off the barrel of a gun and he felt betrayed for a moment before realizing the man had no way of knowing who he was, what with the make-over. He quickly ducked out of the way feeling the whole thing had actually gone pretty well, the momentary Grand Theft Spider aside. Now there was time to panic, at least for a while, but Peter felt the moment had passed. 

Okay, he could have done without the experience, but in the name of ruthless honesty, well. Cecil hadn't used any excessive force, tethering the car had actually been a really good idea, this whole thing could actually work. It could only have been better if he'd had his camera.

"Just no doing that again unless it's really, really necessary," he re-iterated to make sure Cecil understood the gravity of it.

***

The newest generation will always be under the impression it invented teenage rebellion. This is a strange social delusion that defies the history and common sense. I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest, even Shakespeare wrote in A Winter's Tale; "wronging the ancientry" always has been and will be done.

This is one of the things Peter doesn't know of his Aunt May: she used to be a Satanist in her youth. Even old people were teenagers once and despite her tricky health May Parker wasn't even all that old.

"Where did we go wrong with you?" her father had asked her. He had asked several times and would ask several more, but this is a specific conversation.

May had worn a scandalously short black skirt and so much make-up her mother would have called her whorish had she been able to use such words of her precious daughter Her nails had been black and she had worn her cross upside-down. Alice Parker had worn baby blue dress and a single pearl necklace and her discreet make-up had been running down her cheeks. Jonathan Parker's clothes had been unremarkable in comparison to the anger he had worn like a storm cloud.

"You have broken your mother's heart!" he had bellowed. Mrs. Parker had sniffled into her handkerchief on the sofa.

"You don't understand anything!" May had screamed with the unshakable certainty only teenagers and fanatics can possess. "You think I'm gonna wear mary janes and pretty dress with flowers and knit and marry right off the school cause sex is sin until some fat guy in a cassock says amen? Like hell! You can't tell me how to live my life!"

"Silent!" her father had yelled and slapped her, hard; this wasn't seen as such a big thing those days. "You won't speak of men of cloth like that, you won't speak to your parents like that and you won't curse!"

"I can't go to the church anymore! People are talking!" her mother had wailed like a wounded animal.

"You don't understand! You don't remember what it was like to be young, if you ever even were!" May had screamed with tears of pain and shock in her eyes. She had been sixteen years old. At twenty she had turned the cross around, slightly embarrassed, and gone to the community college. The best thing about being a teenager was that everyone grew out of it, in her opinion.

Of course her generation hadn't invented the teenage rebellion either. 1943 her mother had wanted to go to Kay Starr's concert and her father had forbidden her, as the concert was in another town. She couldn't go alone and he didn't have the time and wouldn't listen to bebop even if he did. All protestations that pop wasn't bebop fell to deaf ears as that was even worse. 

Alice had lifted to the city with a cute boy from a few blocks over who had called her eyes beautiful. It had been a huge scandal within the family and carefully kept from getting out to protect her reputation. Worst of all, the boy had been a Methodist, which in Alice's mother's opinion was only marginally better than Catholic. Yet he had eventually become her husband and later in life she had told the story proudly. These things go in circles with each rebellious generation scandalized by their rebellious offspring. Now, May was wiser than some and fully ready to be supportive of Peter's big secret. The problem was that she didn't know what it was.

She knew it wasn't anything terrible because Peter might not be honest all the time, but he was moral. She knew it couldn't be that he was in a closet because he was so obviously smitten with Gwen and in any case he knew she wouldn't care; it was people getting that invested in other people's sex life with who were the perverted ones. She knew Peter's studies were going well enough, but he wasn't reaching his full potential. She knew he seemed terribly tired all the time.

Perhaps she should ask him if he was smoking weed. He didn't seem the type, but she couldn't imagine what else it could be either. It was a high time she asked some serious questions.

***

Peter still wasn't used to how he looked when fully suited. He still thought of red and blue when he thought of Spider-Man, another aspect of himself, and the reflection from the windows of the skyscrapers passing by was just _wrong._ But Gwen didn't seem to mind the change, clinging to him with the help of a good dose of web. She was wearing a hoodie to hide her identity on case someone decided to get shutter-happy; anyone could take a picture, these days.

"I didn't want to say anything, but those shades of red and blue do not go together," she confessed to him when he asked what she thought of his new look.

"This is better than any roller coaster," she whispered into his ear, breathless after yet another deep dip and flying surge. Sometimes he felt he could give her so little, but he could give her this. Hell, she was there instead of in England and he knew he was a big part of it. Not the only reason, he wasn't that conceited, but a big part.

In New York people looked down for the stars, the many lights hiding those on the sky from sight. He had taken Gwen to the top of the city before, but lower places, he felt, would be just as good - and maybe even better. Jumping from one rooftop to another, he advanced the Madison Avenue. He passed the zoo and the lake, then made one last swing over the Fifth Avenue.

"Peter, this is perfect," Gwen whispered, pushing the hood down. Peter felt ridiculous pride as though he had made the place.

It wasn't quiet, it couldn't be so close to the avenue, but everything felt muted regardless. The rooftop garden of the Metropolitan Museum of Art was lovely even in the dimness of the night. There was magic to the solitariness of the place, wind blowing gently through the plantings, the bushes thicker patches of dark against the colourful lights of the city. Gwen ran a few steps and twirled around with the childish, naughty joy of trespassing he knew well.

 _I don't perceive any magic,_ Cecil interrupted with the air of a teacher correcting a wrong answer.

Not literal magic, Peter thought at him with some intensity and followed Gwen as she drifted from one place to another, eventually winding to the edge of the garden where the city opened before them. He would have of course been just as happy watching a movie with her, but he knew he was difficult enough a boyfriend he had to make the effort. Gwen was always patient when he had to run away mid-date, but patience only carried a relationship so far.

"So, hypothetically, if I suddenly acquired a roommate who is some kind of minor eldritch horror, how... what should I do?" he asked her and immediately felt like an idiot for leading with that. Gwen raised one perfect eyebrow.

 _The situation is not hypothetical,_ Cecil protested and Peter got the feeling he was offended by the inaccuracy.

"That depends, I hope they pay rent," Gwen offered, the lights of the city in her eyes. "And don't leave their dirty socks lying around?" The was a note of question tacked to last words in the manner of one who didn't quite understand what the punchline was.

"I guess he pays, in a manner of speaking. And he's the sort to become socks rather than wear them," he answered because protection and assistance in studies did count. In a manner of speaking.

"Well, that sounds useful. As long as strange cults don't start chanting under your window, carry on and don't gibber. Taking your cues in inter species interaction from someone so blatantly racist isn't a good idea anyway," she said and snuggled closer to him, closer to Cecil even if she didn't know it, and Peter felt conflicted.

"Have you read Lovecraft?" he chose to ask, somewhat doubting it. Gwen seemed more the type to enjoy vampire stories, of the old-fashioned sort where they actually were scary and didn't glitter.

"A few of them. I liked Cats of Ulthar a lot, and the Mountains of Madness was good too, even if the main character was kind of fragile in my opinion. But then I got to the Call of Cthulhu and it got disturbing in all the wrong ways." Gwen's face twitched in disgust. "And of course there were suspicious shapes all around his writing." And the disgust melted into a moment of hilarity.

"The what now?" Peter asked because there were several ways that could be interpreted.

"Tall cylindrical shafts here and there bulbously enlarged," she chanted with certainty that told Peter she had memorised it on purpose, and it left him choking on nothing. Okay, he didn't know the context, didn't want to know the context and definitely wasn't taking his cues from anyone who could write that with a straight face.

"So, was this some roundabout way to ask me how I would feel about some role playing?" Gwen asked innocently and Peter choked on nothing and on his tongue because she was clearly some kind of demonic entity as well.

"No, no, a whole big world of no!" he protested and realized with a sinking feeling that there was a problem, a big one.

Cecil was joined to his brain and spinal cord on a cellular level which meant that Peter really couldn't have sex with her without him feeling it as well. And that meant that he couldn't not tell Gwen; letting her have sex with someone sharing your body without being aware of it had to be some weird kind of rape. And he could just say no, but he couldn't just have headache forever so he was going to have to tell her the truth. Which he would have had to do eventually anyway, but he had thought he would have more time.

 _What does rape mean?_ Cecil asked, spinning Peter thoughts into a whole new horrified spiral. _And why do you insist on copulating when you have no intention to reproduce?_ Which, okay, he would have to give Cecil the Talk when they got home. Oh joy.

"You are sometimes so weird, but I love you just as you are," Gwen said affectionately. "But there's something I wanted to talk about. I have a chance at internship at StarkTech and that's great, but there's this... entry exam of sorts. A probation week during which they test us on pretty much everything. He doesn't trust the education system, smart of him, but I really need to prepare." She was chewing her lip with a strangely hopeful look in her eyes; did she expect him to get mad.

"So we won't be meeting for a while," he concluded, hiding his relief at this stay of execution _which was a metaphor, Cecil._ Not that he would have gotten mad even if he didn't need some time and space, it was a great opportunity for her, but now this was really convenient.

"We'll meet less, maybe after I'm past the first three days," she corrected him, pressing her lips to his.

The kiss was sweet, even if the relief where he should have felt none left a tang of bitterness lingering on his tongue as well. Beneath them the city was a rush of light and noise and lives, all the garbage and crimes hidden, and it was romantic, beautiful. Things often looked more beautiful with a little distance - maybe they could look easier as well.

Two days and they didn't meet. Two days and the Avengers found the A.I.M. lab that had let the crab loose.

***

Cecil carefully repressed an inhuman snarl as he put the bread into the toaster and pressed his partner's finger on the lever a seventh time. _You moody spirit, I command you, burn this bread for me or I shall break your mind in half,_ he threatened the disinclined machine. He pressed and the bread holder obediently went down, then leaped back up and spit the slices high into the air.

"Here is a question for you, genius," Peter whispered, reclaiming his mouth for a moment. "One toaster minus electricity equals?" And then he reclaimed his body, bending down to press the plug into the wall socket. Then he reclaimed the bread and put them in and the damnable machine docilely obeyed him.

So the toaster spirit required an offering of energy? Revenge would be upon the recalcitrant thing; it had demanded tribute from a creature much mightier than itself.

I can't believe you can predict the evolution of Chlamydia trachomatis, but a toaster defeats you, Peter laughed silently, with no derision, but strange relief. Humans truly were incomprehensible.

They had been training giving up and regaining control for the past two days, which had involved Cecil making notes for Peter during a lecture about the future of reversing antibiotic resistance. He had faithfully transcribed what the lecturer had dictated, adding his own notes on all the points the man was wrong. Peter had been fascinated and impressed on a level that was equally flattering and bewildering. Bodies were nothing but viscera and evolving, to be of the flesh was to procreate and fear death and die. No matter the size, flesh was easy.

"The Avengers have apprehended an A.I.M cell last night in an abandoned underground tunnel..." the television blared - yet another ingenious human invention - and Peter's interest honed in on it like a visible beacon. Cecil walked them to the living/sleeping room in the spirit of co-operation.

There had been eleven more crabs, the news anchor - whose purpose according to Peter wasn't to hold anything down - told them, and seven of them had been fitted with directed energy weapons.

Directed energy weapons; Peter's enthrallment was plain to read and pleasant to experience. It had probably been less than fun to be on the receiving end of those, the human thought, but _so shiny._ And then there was the moment of realization, that the taser had in truth been an electrolaser, a distinction that meant little to Cecil. Peter regretted the one he had taken had been devoured for a brief, bitter moment before rethinking. To him Cecil was much, much more fascinating than any DEW could ever be, if also much, much more terrifying. Cecil extended some of his mass into the fifth dimension (current plane of existence, the mathematical space human's could't perceive) in pleasure. This partnership was going swimmingly as the humans would say it.

That day Peter took his camera with him as he left patrolling and made to fix it to the roof of a building as fast as he could when he saw a mugging about to happen. Cecil absorbed it as fast as that, fixing it to a much better place with a piece of himself, and their training'd had beneficial effect because Peter barely blinked before he swung down and they both saved a couple, in fertile age but reproductively incompatible, from loss of property and possibly life-threatening injuries.

"Thank you, I follow you in the Web!" the darker man said, shaking their hand, and Peter took a moment to realize he wasn't speaking of the internet, but an immaterial admiration and support community for him. "I never believed those lies that tabloid keeps spreading of you, I'm making a post of this, can we take pictures?" This resulted with both the darker and lighter man taking pictures of each other with Spider-Man and promising to spread the word. Peter was in an exceptionally good mood when he approached the Daily Bugle building, once again in sole control of himself.

"That menace protected a couple of faggots?" J. Jonah Jameson asked, his face a picture of displeasure. "Can't even use it, it's all that PC shit. Used to be a man could defend his values, but no, now it's their sacred right to stick their dicks wherever they want." His lips curled with disgust and Peter swallowed his own. Cecil didn't.

J. Jonah Jameson would turn the world against Peter if he could. He didn't understand why Peter kept associating with the man, something human and complicated to do with money, but he had been called to share and protect and to protect he would. He clenched their fingers; it wouldn't take much to end this once and for...

And then the control was wrestled from him, as startling as temporary blindness.

"I'm sorry, I've got the runs, I'll come back soon!" Peter babbled and ran out of the room. He was scared again and angry, more so than he had been when Cecil had taken the control during the chase, and it tided them both down a flight of stairs and into a dark room. A flip of the switch tinted the darkness with red, driving the black hiding under the tables and tubs that carried the sharp tang of chemicals.

"You can't do that!" Peter hissed at him, pressing his hands into tight fists. "You can't just kill somebody, not even if they are bigoted, tightfisted jerks."

 _Of course I can kill him. He is out of shape even for a human and incapable of defending himself,_ Cecil pointed out, beginning to mirror Peter's frustration. "Why do you insist providing ammunition to your own enemy?" The room tinted everything red like human blood.

"Fine, so you could, doesn't mean you _can._ It's wrong! And criminal! And I need to pay rent too and eat, you know, I need to make money and there's not many jobs that let you run away at the drop of a hat because Sandman decided to run rampant." The dimness around them wasn't subdued, it was boiling with intensity and so was Peter, the edges of myriad injustices flickering across the surface of his consciousness too fast to follow. The room was swimming in red.

 _Why not take what is your by right of debt of life and property? You are strong enough to take what is yours if people are too avaricious to give._ He could take for Peter, of course, but he was reluctant to distress his partner so. Yet didn't it distress him, to swallow down his disgust as he served the one who used him and benefited of his prowess and still persecuted him. _These morals of yours are unnecessarily complicated and impractical concepts._

Peter's hands were shaking and his heart hammered with fight, with the courage to not flee or bow his head; flesh was simple, flesh was tedious, but this mortal was more than his tedious flesh. Those shaking hands picked a phone from his pocket, opened it.

"So I'm unreasonable now when I don't want my body turned into a murder weapon? I'll show you an argument as reasonable as you are," he hissed and ran his finger across the screen of the oracle device.

The picture had a cat in shallow water leaning against a green orb of some sort. The explanation read: This cat is pushing a watermelon out of a lake. Your argument is invalid.

A cat, a watermelon, a lake, of course. Cecil felt pure relief as he was finally given an argument he could understand.

 _Of course, now I understand,_ he said, twining apology withing the confines of the words.

"Wait, you accept it just like that?" Peter stuttered, the fight leaving him in a rush. The screen went dark and a quick flick of a finger brought the cat back. It moved without the human's will, but not against it.

"Of course. You should have submitted the superior argument from the beginning," Cecil admonished him. And though is bond with his human partner eclipsed the need for mere words he couldn't understand why the human begun to laugh, incredulous and relieved and disbelieving. It probably had something to do with adrenaline.

They returned to J. Jonah Jameson's office and sold the picture at a cheaper price the Peter had initially hoped. This Cecil learned that day: 1) money is necessary unless one lives in a jungle; 2) Peter refused to move into a jungle; 3) the darkroom belonged to Ben Urich because he was the only dinosaur to still use it; 4) Ben Urich wasn't actually a dinosaur, and/but he was awesome enough to get away with being a dinosaur regardless and 5) internet was for porn and cats. Cecil wasn't certain about porn, but he respected cats greatly.

***

Four days more and Gwen remained dreadfully busy. She truly had been thrown into the deep end of the pool and she loved it.

Mary Jane finally managed to get hold of her, which she did by barging into her home uninvited with a paper bag full of bagels and making herself home on Gwen's sofa. She immediately became terribly self-conscious about the dust bunnies in the corners and the pile of dishes in the sink; there had been no time for any housekeeping either. But her friend didn't seem to care, only pushing a bagel towards her mouth as though she was a little kid. She opened it obediently, biting into creemy cheese goodness.

"One of these days he is going to dump you if you don't pay him more attention," Mary Jane said and Gwen blinked, lifting her gaze from her tablet.

"What?" she asked around mouthful of bagel. Mary Jane snorted, eyes unusually disapproving.

"Peter, Gwen, you remember he's your boyfriend, right?" Her friend's glare softened. "I know your work is important to you and your studies too, but relationships take work. He's been more patient than anyone before, but even he's got to have his limits."

She really wasn't one to talk, Gwen thought rebelliously. If there was a prize for determined singles Mary Jane had earned it several times over - yet that didn't mean she had no point.

In High School Gwen had been the popular girl who changed boyfriends like socks and the general opinion had held this had been by choice, but the general opinion had a way of being wrong. Always when she got together there had been the honeymoon period when she could barely be pried from her boyfriend's side with a crowbar. Then she had begun to get used to his presence and there had been so many other things to catch her interest: excursion to someplace like Oscorp or Stark labs, an important science project, an interview of a famous chemist. Then she would go a day without answering his texts because she forgot to check her phone or cancel a date and go without seeing the boy for a week after. 

Pretty, popular Gwen could get herself a boyfriend with a wink and a smile, but she couldn't keep one to save her life - not before Peter. He certainly couldn't afford to cast any stones at her schedule and he understood why she found her studies so interesting. And really, superheroes made for surprisingly handy boyfriends. Difficult jars, helping with moving, romantic rooftop dates and little gifts just appearing on her windowsill, Peter could do it all.

But it had been a while - a long while - since they had last seen one another. Gwen winced because calling and texting really wasn't the same and Mary Jane had a point, she hadn't made any kind of real effort for a while. Her honeymoon period with Peter had lasted longer than with anyone else by a tall margin, but clearly all things must come to an end.

"Thank you," she said sincerely, already digging her phone from her bag. The thought of having the Conversation with Peter made her almost physically ill.

 _You love your amino acids more than me. Even when you're there you aren't_ there. _You never have time for me anymore. I met this girl. We aren't gonna work._

The phone rang two times before Peter picked up.

"Hi, Gwen, it's great to hear of you!" he answered, smile in his voice. He really was too patient for his own good.

"And it would be greater to see you again," she answered, relieved. "I'm terribly sorry, I'm paying for the next date and it's going to be an expensive one. Just tell me next time I'm doing this." I love you more than amino acids, she didn't say. He wouldn't have gotten it and she preferred it that way.

"The brave new millennium. How have things been going at the Promised Land?" he asked, briefly interrupted by the sound of a horn blaring. Of course he would be patrolling.

"Well, I think I have a real chance at this, and the contract is a lot better than at Oscorp too." She hadn't realized back then, had not thought how much she had done for them, just been happy she got paid at all. "Really, thank you for understanding."

"You gave up Oxford before I even knew it was an option on the table, I'm not the kind of an asshole who would ask you to give up this. You are a great girlfriend," Peter answered the with unyielding certainty of a zealot. 

He panicked when Gwen started sniffling.

***

When it rains it pours, Uncle Ben always used to say, so make sure to fix your roof and basement windows. He had laughed in that way people did when the joke wasn't actually funny and it wasn't often that Peter saw him bitter about anything.

He went to visit Aunt May the day after the Darkroom Incident, which had actually inspired Peter to sacrifice milk to the goddess of cats who might or might not exist, but at least Cecil had wholeheartedly approved. The milk had disappeared from the circle over the night and he had again resolved to Not Think About It.

"How are your studies going?" Aunt May asked as she gave him a plate of brownies. Peter was very happy to assure her the studies went great, which was actually true; no matter how late he stayed up at night, Cecil always got him through. Nothing made him feel guilty like lying to Aunt May and he did too much of that as was.

"Ohng, you made these from scratch again, didn't you?" he gasped, swallowing the first one in two big bites. His aunt only graced the question with a tiny sniff.

"Of course I did, pastries have to be made with love to counter all the unhealthy." Her smile looked too young on her face and all of a sudden he realized that her aunt had become old. Well, not old-old, but there were cobweb-fine wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth and he was pretty sure there would be some gray if she wasn't dyeing. Peter swallowed, pushed another delicious piece of mocha and chocolate into his mouth to cover for it. Of course he had always known she would die before him in a vague kind of way, but now it seemed eerily, terribly present.

It was like he could see her slowly dying in the manner all humans did over years and decades. God, he was feeling morbid.

 _Humans are born dying, but a portion of me could lengthen her life,_ Cecil offered, _if you believe she could bear me. Not infinitely, but for some decades._

And for the first time Peter wondered if he maybe really could tell. While Aunt May didn't think too highly of Spider-Man now, he didn't have a doubt that if he told her who he was she would get an account in the Web faster than you could say account. It was just her heart that he worried about, that the strain of fearing for him would be too much - but then, Cecil had said he could take care of that. So it just came down to whether or not he thought she could accept _him,_ even a portion of him that didn't speak and couldn't take her over.

(It came down to whether or not he trusted him with her. The jury kept vacillating on the subject.)

"How have things been with Gwen?" Aunt May asked and now Peter had to repress a grimace. He had hidden his head in the sand and avoided Gwen, which had only worked because she had been busy until now, only texting with her at evenings. He felt terrible about it and missed her horribly, but still felt some dread when he thought about the next day.

"Great too, she's been a little busy, but we are going to go to the planetarium and some mystery restaurant tomorrow," he answered, steeling himself to tell the truth after. It wasn't that he didn't trust Gwen to handle the news but, well, the jury was vacillating and Gwen would get curious. He just couldn't tell her no and who knew what would happen?

"So, are you smoking weed?" Aunt May asked him with the same voice she had asked about Gwen. Peter dropped his brownie on his lap.

"What?" he asked, maybe a little shrilly. "I'm not smoking anything!" Aunt May's tilt of mouth was entirely unimpressed.

"You are keeping a secret, have for a while. I wanted to wait for you to tell me on your own, but now I'm beginning to think that day would never come," said simply, making Peter squirm. First he was the coward of a boyfriend and now he was an ungrateful nephew. It just wasn't easy.

This was when a panicked voice cut of the document about orcas that had been playing in the background. Peter could see from the open door it was a red-haired reporter, the same it had been that Night of the Rainbow Crab.

"New York Harbour has been invaded by a, an amphibious man and a horde of crabs!" she fairly screeched. "He says his name is Namor and that the crabs are holy crabs!" Peter's first reaction was a flat what as the camera turned towards a man who looked suspiciously like Mister Spock, only a lot more nude.

"My people's holy crabs have been taken by an organization named Aim and I hear those called Avengers are responsible for their destruction," the man spoke with a heavy, lilting accent, like a boat bobbing up and down on waves. A murderous boat full of bloodthirsty pirates, that was. "I demand that those responsible shall present themselves to me!"

For once Peter was grateful his heroic deeds were entirely forgotten, except that he happened to be aware that the Avengers were out of the city yet again. And he had killed one crab so he fit the bill too. With crab-killing power came the responsibility to stand up to angry mermaid people. Uncle Ben would roll in his grave if he didn't.

"But seriously, mermaid people? And A.I.M. kidnapped their holy crabs?" Just when he hadn't thought his life could get any weirder. "I've got to go, Duchess, I can get good, no, wait. I'm the Spider-Man." Maybe it was a whim or the moment or guilt, but his own words hit Peter only a second after he had spoken them. Aunt May's jaw dropped.

"...You are WHAT!?" she finally managed to ask, her voice rising to an unheard-of-before crescendo. On another whim Peter called for Cecil, felt him stretching from the form of simple jeans all over himself.

"I'll explain later, now I've got to go. Don't worry, he didn't harm that reporter either, see? He just wants to see the Avengers." What she didn't know could still hurt him a lot, but hopefully not so much it would hurt her.

 _There is no need to worry, I know the Deep Ones. He will not fight me,_ Cecil stated like he had said the sky was blood red and raining scorpions, ominous as shit, but for once he was oh so grateful. He turned to run, Cecil camouflaging once more, but his name from his aunt's lips stopped him dead cold.

"I thought this was over when Ben retired from the fire department," she said with an almost dreamy voice. "We will speak later. I love you and I'm proud of you, but if you die I'm going to kill you."

"I'm sorry," Peter choked out and ran without looking back. He really was, just not sorry enough to stop.

The travel to the harbour wasn't instant either, but this time the Fantastic Four were there instead of on Mars or where-ever else that was going to make Peter so jealous once he could take the time to think about it. Unlike the disaster movies had led him to believe the Statue of Liberty had been left unmolested and the horde of crabs was running around the Howland Hook Marine Terminal instead. He crouched atop a container crane and watched as the Thing charged at three crabs, the Human torch swooped down from the sky towards the Sea-Spock and Mister Fantastic lassoed whole six with his arms. The Invisible Woman was, predictably, nowhere to be seen.

He was just beginning to feel unnecessary when the three crabs charging the Thing right back waved their right pincers in perfect unison and a jet of water spurted from the sea, hitting the orange giant like a water hose a mice. Another such jet hit the man burning like a comet and Mister Fantastic went flying because of something Peter didn't even see. He still couldn't see the Invisible Woman, but two crabs fell and started twitching on the ground so at least someone was having some success.

This was going to hurt a lot. The crab he had fought hadn't done anything like this.

"If they are holy beats they must be anointed before a battle. I doubt this A.I.M. of your people knew how to do it," Cecil spoke and leaped down, ran towards the man who marched towards Mister Fantastic slowly and unflinchingly like the rising tide - right until he caught movement from the corner of his eye and turned towards him/them. For all Cecil had promised him an easy confrontation he hadn't expected this. Namor turned pasty greenish colour that really made him wonder what went on in the man's blood. It couldn't even be hemocyanin, he really was a Mister Spock, wasn't he?

"And now you are going to say I'm illogical, aren't you," he quipped, sadly aware the humour of it would be lost on someone who lived under the sea, and Ariel jokes probably would have flown over his head too.

There was a string of something throaty, bobbing and garbled that Peter didn't get and yet did at the same time. It was like someone poured cold, live sardines down his back, the way he suddenly _knew,_ understood without understanding: "The Devourer of the Deeps, the Killer of Pods, is this your doing?" There was fear, so much fear.

"This was not," Cecil spoke in the same language without a quantum of sympathy, "A.I.M is responsible and the A.I.M chapter in this city has been taken down. I have Become a protector of order in this city and I cannot allow you to damage it. Leave in peace or leave." There were connotations nestled into that last word that didn't quite translate, but still made Peter feel nauseous.

"They killed the holy crabs, surely even your people have laws about that," Namor insisted and Peter had to give him points for balls the size of melons, the pun accidental, but also appreciated. The crabs had turned away from the Fantastic Four and approached them from all sides. He could feel Cecil's confidence, even slight amusement.

"Um, no, you might've had better luck in India. And that only happened because the A.I.M. turned them against the city and they too are this city's protectors. Turn your anger against the A.I.M. instead," he tried to reason with the man, in English because he didn't think his vocal cords - or his nerves for that matter - could manage what Cecil and Namor were speaking. He wasn't terribly surprised to see Namor's mouth thin into a stubborn line, but the man and his people had been wronged and Peter had wanted to try.

And then Cecil did something. For a moment there was pressure building in his ears like he had dived to the bottom of a swimming pool and then there was more of him, or more of Cecil rather. He was spreading all around and for a mad moment he thought it must look like a poofy dress and almost laughed before Cecil swallowed the sound. His second thought was that it was like the bell of a jellyfish, only opaque and shineless like a black hole. And then there were, still not tentacles, but some kind of chitinous things sticking out everywhere. 

"You have launched an attack against the Protected; the Cat will not save you," Cecil spoke with something that almost sounded like his voice and Peter could practically hear the capital letters. "Take your grudge to the Aim and leave this city." And incredulously, miraculously this was enough.

Namor and his crabs left in good order, carrying the five that were damaged, probably all due to the Invisible Woman. When the last of the carapaces disappeared under the waves there was a moment of weightlessness and the extra material was sucked away somewhere and Peter was left controlling his body again, in humanoid shape again. The Invisible Woman turned visible again and was staring at him, at Cecil who now left the control of the body entirely to him, which. The Thing marched towards him with the steady, unyielding roll of a tank and Peter knew there were some really, really pertinent questions he was going to ask.

So was Mister Fantastic, who was kind of his Idol nr. 2 second only to Tony Stark. Except if Erskine, Einstein and Curie counted, but they were all dead. And that wasn't the point at all. Um.

This was going to be awkward.

***

And from there the story would go on. These are universal truths: opera doesn't end before the fat lady sings and fairy tales don't end until the happily ever after.

This is what the being known as Cecil could tell you: ever after takes a long time.


End file.
